Tag: Free Time

all things end.

well. i think a “going home” post is not quite what you’re going to get since i’m staying a week after everyone leaves, but i think a little summary of everything i did instead will be a bit more interesting.

first thing i did was go to ghibli park with my parents and while it was definitely tailored for little children it was well worth seeing as an adult. it’s worth mentioning that i also only saw the “warehouse” park since tickets to the other 2 sections literally cannot be purchased outside of japan. i think those are a bit less of a playground than the warehouse was but alas. i will take what i can get. i loved the park’s focus on immersion over typical Theme Parkiness that i normally have to get past in order to enjoy myself. across the park’s many exhibits i felt like i could truly just Be with thoughts about these movies that i love so much; i didn’t feel like the park was trying to sell an image of The Ghibli Brand (TM) to me because it knew it didn’t have to. my favorite exhibit was probably a series of rooms that detailed how food is animated and colored in the films, it was so specific but exactly the type of detail i was happy to see explained. it’s worth mentioning that i also went to The Milk Stand. yes. there is a critically acclaimed stand that sells milk and little red bean paste sandwiches and that shit was delightful. truly the weirdest milk i have ever tried. it was like creamy in taste without actually being creamy in consistency. and a bit sweet. really was excellent with the red bean paste sandwich though. it was a typical paste between two pieces of pound cake. i miss red bean paste so much. if i found out a way to get red bean buns in america right now i would cry in real life.

[the greater park that surrounds the ghibli park is a sight on its own. i loved walking in the very well maintained trails after the park. saw a stickbug, caught this view, good stuff.]

next we went to nara park, which if you didn’t already know is the famous place where the wild deer walk around. this was very neat in theory but what it ends up meaning in practice is that a bunch of unpredictable large wild animals are comfortable coming up to you and doing whatever they want. this was a bit stressful but the surrounding shrine and woods were truly amazing and it was cool to see it basically function as a deer city.

[there was also, if it needs saying. shit everywhere. i would not go to this place for the deer. go for the hike.]

the last place we went before leaving was the ghibli museum, which you weren’t allowed to take pictures of. that was a shame because this was hands down my favorite place and an architectural masterpiece. the stained glass windows were probably my favorites, all depicting characters from the films, and the railings that lined the floors with the occasional glass sphere. i really liked the exhibit that was all about the concept art and storyboarding of the films, they had original works just covering the walls of a intricately decorated “apartment”, tacked up with thumbtacks like they are in the studio. it felt authentic, it felt approachable. it quite literally was approachable, with no protection or divider between museum guests and the works. the design of the space implicitly has faith that you will respect the work and not try to vandalize or touch it, which seemingly has worked thus far. i also saw a movie here that i was really looking forward to. they don’t play the shorts that screen at the museum and the park anywhere else in the world, and they rotate them out so you don’t really know what you’re gonna get. the one i saw was a short continuation of my neighbor totoro which was as good as i could have asked for honestly (if you made me pick totoro’s probably my favorite. yes. i am basic.) the film displayed a whole underground catbus society with a soundtrack that was just lovely. i wish i could see it again but i suppose they want to make the films precious in this way for a reason.

[you were allowed to take pictures of the outside. looked crazy, went hard, i feel like there’s only so many ways i can generally point at something and say “I LIKE THAT” before it gets redundant.]

and. well. time to talk about the dawn of the final day. the true ending, if you will.

the ending of my time with everyone was uneventful. i like it that way. i think my reaction to permanent endings is best kept in private. i hugged jasmine the night before, encountered some people when i was checking out and gave a very awkward “bye.” nothing too serious, no real acknowledgement of the connection that was made over these two weeks. i think that is how it has to be sometimes. some relationships are special enough to feel like they could never be replicated but not close enough for emotional vulnerability to be comfortable. i think we all knew how this would go, and it went how it had to.

when i decided to take this class and go on this trip i fully expected to be spending as much time as possible by myself. i knew nearly everyone on the trip would be younger than me, i knew that the only person i knew ahead of time was going to be spending their time with someone else, and i hadn’t made any connections during the class. i had fully set myself up to be alone, i made that bed and was prepared to lie in it. i’m not sure what exactly happened but somehow i ended up doing the opposite the whole trip. i feel like due to the setting and the overall lack of pre-established close relationships between us, everyone was able to move very freely within the group. i felt comfortable hanging out with everyone and going with any person who made an open offer. it was a real Group in every sense of the word, everyone on the same level as each other and regarding other members equally, and that is seriously such a rare dynamic in this world. if people could bottle that feeling they would.

i didn’t spend as much time doing my typical introspective focus-on-the-culture travel activities because i was honestly just having so much damn fun hanging out with people. that was a first for me, having a solid group like that. i don’t regret spending as much time as i could with them even though it did come at the expense of a few of my plans.

i’m making a drawing of everyone, it’ll get done eventually and i’ll post it in the discord. turns out drawing 20 people kind of takes a while. lol.

anyway i hope you liked reading my posts. i skipped the free days and the last friday because. honestly. i didn’t take any pictures and in a few cases i literally didn’t do anything other than follow other people on their shopping trips and eat. i didn’t have a lot of inherent reasons to go where i was going i just liked being included. i like to think that what i did write makes up for it. quality over quantity if you will. or maybe you won’t. i was never good at persuasive writing because while i have a lot of strong beliefs i’m largely not interested in telling people what to think. you can take points off for that i don’t mind. alright. well. this has gone on long enough, but if i stop typing and post the document it’s over for real. no you hang up. no. no you do it. fine i’m hanging up. alright bye.

[i had a window seat on the way back. ain’t that neat :2]

The Climb

I’ll be combining Monday and Tuesday into a single blog since they were both relatively uneventful (in comparison to most of the other days on this trip).

We started Monday with a trip to Ginza, as there’s a 12-floor UNIQLO store there that we both wanted to visit. The rest of the area was super expensive (think Dior, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, etc.) so we didn’t stick around for long, but the UNIQLO store was definitely worth visiting! I got some cheap shirts (including some Splatoon 3 collaboration shirts) and a nice pair of pants that I had bought previously in a different color. The whole place felt like it was trying to be an art exhibition while also being a store, which seemed like a product of the district it was in but it was kind of neat!

We were pretty beat after travelling to Ginza as it was a pretty far trip and the pure exhaustion from just how much we had been doing for the last three weeks was finally starting to catch up to us, so we revisited the pasta place I praised before for a mix of lunch and dinner and settled in for a night of self care. I dismissed my fear of the customs officers and broke out my switch dock so that Jessica and I could take turns playing Tears of the Kingdom on the TV in our hotel room. While I’m sure we could have dragged ourselves back out for another adventure, we were both pretty beat and I don’t regret taking a night to relax and prepare ourselves for what would come tomorrow.

We woke up a bit late on Tuesday morning and headed to Tokyo Tower for the dreaded 600-step climb to the top. I was much less excited than Jessica for the trek, but it ended up being a bit easier than I expected it to be! They had signs on the way up to question you about some fun facts about the tower, which was probably the only thing that kept me going as I got a second to breathe while Jessica translated the signs. At the top of the tower was a pretty cool view and a small shrine you could pray to, and on our way back down we stopped at some Hello Kitty themed gachapon machines and I got a picture of the statue inside the tower. Pretty cool!

We decided to stop in Ueno as we were coming back from the tower, since it was already on the way and we didn’t trust ourselves to have the energy to leave the hotel again once we were back and showered. We stopped in at a merchandise store outside of the station and picked up some miscellaneous goodies, and then went to visit Book-Off (a pretty well known secondhand store) with no luck.

After that, we took a walk through the park to find a cluster of public activities that featured two more Pokemon sewer grates (YES, I did go out of my way to find more. Don’t judge me.) and I’m REALLY surprised that we didn’t visit this area during the main portion of our trip. There were two museums and a zoo, all nestled into this absolutely gorgeous park that would have been lovely to explore compared to the other somewhat depressing museum we had visited instead. But seeing Diver City instead was worth it!

As we were heading back to Asakusa, the hunger began to kick in, and we ducked into a place that had dumplings for lunch. We ordered 12 dumplings and a large helping of rice, which also came with two fried chicken nuggets and some soup, and it cost us 820 yen in total, which was barely $3 each! I will always mourn the loss of super cheap but still good food now that I am back in America.

We finally got back to our hotel and were able to clean ourselves up and sit down and organize all of our stuff to prepare for the trip home tomorrow. It was quite the daunting task, but a necessary evil that I’m very grateful I left time for. Knowing that this was our last night in Japan made me sad, but deep in my heart I was ready to go home.

Food in Day 9: Second Free Day

For our second free day, Maddy and I went to Character Street in Tokyo Station to buy some (mainly from Ghibli) character-themed goodies. After that, we went back to Akihabara, looked through Radio Kaiken, went back to Mandarake to take our time looking through their merchandise, and various other stores in the area. After spending a lot of money and taking even more steps, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

Who makes a better breakfast than McDonald’s in Japan? My answer is no one, especially if you consider how cheap it is. I ended up getting a chicken McMuffin, a hashbrown, and some hot coffee. I personally did not appreciate how bitter the hot coffee was, but I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my meal. The chicken McMuffin was savory and filling, and although I do not normally like mustard, the mustard in this sandwich was not too overwhelming so it didn’t bother me.

Maddy and I found this interesting steak place in Akihabara that was on the second floor of a building of restaurants. I ordered a rice dish with steak, cheese, garlic chips, and a fried egg. The sauce on the steak was so good, and the met itself was delicious. The yolk of the egg was runny which is exactly how I like my eggs, and the garlic chips paired well with all of the flavors present in this dish. They also gave me a side of broth which helped to mellow out the powerful flavors of my lunch.

Before dinner, we stopped to get boba. I got matcha with brown sugar and pearls. It was so good. That’s all I have to say. You know it’s good when I don’t have any words to describe it.

For dinner, Maddy, Vincent, Brody and I went to go get hot pot. We got a good variety of meats and vegetables. All I can say is that it was good, but definitely on the pricier side in comparison to the other meals I had eaten on this trip. The broth was also less flavorful than I had expected, but that’s on us for getting the normal broth instead of the spicy.

That was a good way to end our last free day.

Merchandise Heaven

I was very excited for Sunday because I had planned my excursion today well in advance. Me and Jessica went to Yokohama, the second most populated city in Japan! We specifically came here because I had heard of a secondhand anime merchandise store that sells a lot of Pokemon plushes (and boy was I not prepared for the wallet destroyer that I walked into) but we’ll get into that later!

We were awoken Sunday morning around 10 AM by the shaking of our beds – we experienced a 4.2 earthquake that happened just 10-15 miles from our hotel! It wasn’t very strong, but it was still a bit alarming and woke both of us up for good. Just another iconic Japan experience I guess!

Yokohama was very pretty, but also super city-like and a bit overwhelming with the crowds. We went to a restaurant called Yokohama Kitchen for lunch, where I got a platter with steak, chicken, and fries that was pretty good! We then took a slight detour to a store called WEGO, which is well known for its poorly translated English shirts, though I ended up not buying anything because it was pretty expensive and didn’t have too much I was interested in. We also took a trip to a local convenience market (P.S. you can get a pack of 20 pads in Japan for ~300 yen, which is like 10 cents a pad and an INCREDIBLE deal and it made me very sad that I live in America :”) ) and an art supplies store where I picked up some washi tape.

Next was the Yokohama Pokemon Center, which did have a few things that we hadn’t seen at other Pokemon stores but nothing too crazy. We did happen to show up at the perfect time though, as we noticed a crowd was gathering at the back of the center. Lo and behold, we had walked into a Pikachu greeting where we got to see two costumed Pikachu come out and put on a show! We didn’t stay for the whole thing since we couldn’t understand any of what they were saying anyways, but I’m super happy that I got to see them again after seeing one at the Pokemon Cafe! They’re just so cute…

In the same mall on the floor below the Pokemon Center was Suragaya, the secondhand store that I had mentioned earlier. We had no idea what we were walking into. This store was kind of insane – they had walls of Pokemon stuffed animals and anime figured at INSANELY good prices. I ended up spending around $80 on plushies that would have easily cost me $200+ if I was trying to buy them in America. Absolutely no regrets (except maybe for not buying more)!

I also ended up buying a copy of Pokemon HeartGold, in the box with the Pokewalker (a very rare accessory that’s hard to find new) for $45, which is usually more than $200 in the US. SUPER COOL!! (I still have yet to buy batteries for it so I can test it, but hopefully it works, LOL!)

To end the day we decided to order pizza from Pizza Hut to see if it was any different from getting pizza in America. We tried to place an order online, but Jess accidentally set it as a carry out order instead of a delivery order, so we had to call the pizza place and attempt to communicate with them that we needed to change the address or cancel the order. It got to the point where I translated something on my phone with Google Translate and played it out loud over the speaker phone… not my proudest moment. But eventually we were able to cancel the order and reorder it properly, and it was super good!

This was definitely my favorite day in terms of buying merch. This would mark the last time I spent a lot of money on non-practical stuff for myself, which is probably a good thing because I was starting to run low! But I was very excited to visit UNIQLO on Monday, and climb Tokyo Tower on Tuesday. The trip is quickly coming to a close, but every day has something new!

Tearful Goodbyes

Saturday was the day that most of our group was leaving. We spent the morning doing some last minute shopping and saying goodbye to people as they left. At noon, me and Jessica checked out of our hotel in Akihabara and jumped in a taxi with Jasmine to head to our hotels. Jasmine was staying in a hostel nearby so we dropped her off first and then headed to our hotel in Asakusa. The hotel was small but all of the staff were very nice and they had a lot of amenities and free drinks throughout the day that made up for my inability to leave my suitcases open for any long period of time because of the lack of space in our room.

We decided to get lunch at a pasta place across the street from our hotel, which marked the first time I’ve ever tried Carbonara before and MAN it was good!! I wanted to get french fries on the side but the waiter must have misheard me and gave me a sausage instead, which I wasn’t too happy about but I didn’t want to try to explain to him that I had asked for something else with the language barrier so I kept my peace. The pasta itself though was fantastic!!

After we ate, we headed to Shinjuku to look at the giant 3D cat billboard and a shrine nearby. The pictures for the billboard don’t look fantastic, but it did appear surprisingly real in person and made me very happy! The shrine was surreal because the grounds were tucked in amongst massive skyscrapers and office buildings, and felt like a little escape from the chaos of the city. We also stopped in at an arcade that we passed while walking back from the shrine and I managed to win two dog keychains for me and Jessica!

Once we were back from Shinjuku, we had to decide what to do with our evening. After some deliberation, we decided that it would be fun to go to an onsen. For those who aren’t familiar, an onsen is a hot spring bath (ours was in the middle of the city, so it was really just a communal hot tub) where you cannot wear a bathing suit. So yes, we sat naked in a hot tub with a bunch of strangers. And honestly, it wasn’t that bad! Once you get in and realize that nobody around you cares, and as long as you follow the rules and are respectful of everyone around you, it’s a pretty chill experience. But I’m not sure if I’d do it again, and definitely not alone!

I will likely combine Monday and Tuesday as they were less eventful than Sunday and Wednesday, but I won’t decide for sure until I write it. We’ll see! Almost there, I still have a lot more to share!!

Culture Day

My day started with brunch with my Dad, who was on a layover, at Denny’s. At Denny’s, I was taking to my Dad about the trip when the person at the table next to us caught our attention and introduced himself as a employee at Gamefreak. We talked for a while and connected on LinkedIn.

At noon, we all met to go to the Imperial Palace and walk around the gardens. Toshi explained the respect that people have for the Imperial family and thus it was a crime to take anything from there. The gardens were really pretty and one area had different species of trees from all over Japan.

After that, we went to Harujuku where we had a lunch at a cafe at the top of a mall. The mall was really fancy looking and had an escalator that looked as if it could be straight out of Doctor Strange.

The next stop was the Meiji Shrine where we walked through a forest to get inside. The shrine itself was impressive but the forest surrounding it was more impressive, in my opinion.

After the shrine was our free time where some of Jessica, Chloe and I went to Shibuya to shop at the One Piece store. We also stopped by the Jump Store and saw the Mewtwo tank at the Pokemon Center.

Last, we ended the day celebrating Fabian’s 21st birthday at the Monster Hunter cafe. The food was extremely mid but I got a delicious drink.

That’s all for today. See you next time!

To be continued…

Actually Doing Game Industry Things

Friday was pretty packed with both events and rain! It rained pretty much the entire day, and the wind was a bit much at times, but it honestly just made the day more memorable.

We met at 10 AM and walked to Unreal Fest, a game industry networking / showcase event that Epic Games was hosting. It was cool, but I don’t think foreigners were the intended audience (obviously). The day we were able to go wasn’t focused on indie game showcases, but instead on seminars for people learning how to use Unreal Engine and make games. As someone who A) has never touched Unreal before, and B) can’t understand more than a couple simple phrases in Japanese, the seminar that I attended was pretty much just a break to sit for an hour. But the game showcases that were on display were really fun to play test!

One of the games I enjoyed most was a VR rhythm game where you’re shooting bullets at timed targets to the music. As someone who loves rhythm games, it was right up my alley. There was also a cool game about learning English based on groups of letters (for example, breaking “perfection” into “per”, “fec”, and “tion”) that had a really cute art style. They also gave us some merchandise for attending, namely a wristband, a bag, and some flyers that I definitely don’t have anymore. But I did buy a cute fruit sticker from one of the game showcase tables! (I didn’t really take any pictures from the Unreal Fesr, but I cannot for the life of me get rid of the image spot above / next to this text, so enjoy this weird random pic of an email they sent me about Unreal Fest lol.)

Once we were finished at Unreal Fest, we were all excited for lunch. I found a super small wagyu yakiniku place nearby, and man was it incredible. It was me, Pavel, Megan, Skyler, and Fabian, and just us alone took up nearly half of the space in the restaurant, but we got there at the perfect time when it was totally empty. Yakiniku is a type of restaurant where you’re provided with your own mini grill, and you can cook the meat to your liking. The meat was fantastic (and this was the first restaurant since being here in Japan that provided salt on the table, which was a big plus for me) and it was a really unique experience that I’m really happy I got to have. I’m really sad that I didn’t make it back here for the rest of my trip!

After lunch, we had some time to kill before we met with our professors again at 2:30. I went to the card store that I’d visited a couple days before to get some other cards that I’d been thinking about in my head, and then me and Pavel went to Bic Camera to meet up with Fabian. The only notable thing there was that they had a Pikachu keyboard on display, which was SO EXCITING to me because I’ve always seen them in videos and never gotten to play with one in person.

It was then time to head to CyberConnect2, a small game studio that we had the opportunity to tour that afternoon. They’re responsible for a lot of anime-to-video game titles, namely Naruto games, and it was cool to see all of the merchandise that they have in their offices and how small the teams really are in some gaming studios. The whole presentation they gave us felt super sugar-coated and corporate (and I’m not gonna lie, I was really close to falling asleep in the middle just because we were all SO tired from how busy we’ve been and getting to sit for an hour was few and far between) but it was a great experience! I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures inside of the office of course, but they did have an anniversary banner in their lobby that I got a picture of.

We were all pretty tired once we got back from the studio tour, but the next thing we had to worry about was dinner. We split into two main groups and the group I went with that went to Sushiro, a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. It’s another experience that I was really excited to have while being in Japan, and we had a lot of fun! Chloe, Fabian, Pavel and I sat at a booth together and I got to try some stuff that I don’t think I would’ve in another scenario, such as crab tempura with some mystery sauce on it (pretty sure it was mayo, but there is no guarantee). There was also a delicious chocolate cake slice that I of course had to order too!

Despite the rain, Chloe and I managed to convince Pavel and Fabian to come to the arcade next door with us to play the rhythm and crane games. We learned that Chloe is an absolute god at the cranes, winning a Miffy stuffed animal and a King Boo night light, and I had fun playing a rhythm game called maimai DX that I would definitely become addicted to if I lived here. Just before we left I also managed to win a Pokemon stuffed animal from one of the crane machines!

To end the night, we finished the Dungeons and Dragons movie and spent our final time together as a large portion of the group. Saying goodbye was really hard, but I’m so blessed to have been on this trip with so many incredible and amazing people and learned so much about myself and the world. I wouldn’t have traded this trip for anything else, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again when I’m back in Rochester. I love you guys!!

There is no other group of people I’d rather be crammed into an elevator with LOL!

Moe Moe Kyun!!!

Our first free day in Tokyo started with a quick Starbucks run and a trip to a crepe shop. I got a tiramisu cream crepe and it was pretty good. The group then decided to go to Character Street at Tokyo Station where we bumped into a wild Sten wandering around Akihabara. He then joined us on our travels.

At Character Street, we shopped at all of the stores. I bought merch at the Jump store, Snoopy store, and a Quintessential Quintuplets pop up store. There were also other smaller stores where I bought my new favorite towel. It is a Haikyu towel of the character Kageyama Tobio and it says Ballin. They also had a Ghibli store and a pokemon center.

Afterwards, I headed back to the hotel with Sten and had a brief visit to Super Potato before heading back to the hotel. However, instead of resting, I had to find a coin laundry. I then found one on Google maps that was 11 minutes away and walked to it. Turns out, it was right next to a station one stop away from Akihabara so I went back to shop during the hour while my clothes were being washed. After picking up my clothes, I stopped off at a Thai restaurant for a quick early dinner.

At around 7:30, it was time for a maid cafe adventure with Sten and Steve. Since Jas and Jessica went to a cafe where the maids wore cat ears, we decided that it would be a great idea to approach any maid we saw but only if they were wearing cat ears. Immediately, Sten finds a cute maid in cat ears right outside our hotel and nonchalantly walked up to her and asked where her place was. The poor maid was in sheer terror as she probably had never met such a large and scary bald man with Yokai tatoos. After that, I was relegated to the duty of maid conversationalist as I am neither a large or scary bald man and I do not have Yokai tatoos. My ability to speak Japanese may have also been a deciding factor. Sten and Steve were lucky and had the job of pretending not to know me by hanging out in a nearby store to not scare the maid. After talking to a few maids, I struck a meaningful conversation with a maid and she offers to show me the way to her cafe. I call over Sten and Steve which surprisingly did not scare her off. She leads us up into a slightly suspicious bar with brightly colored and expensive looking alcohol where we quickly make our way out the door. We later found the maid cafe where Jas and Jessica went the day before. At the beginning, they served us Tokyo Mew Mew water where upon drinking it, you would turn into a cat! After turning into cats, we then enjoyed overpriced and aggressively mediocre deserts and soft drinks served by the maids in cat ears. We also got our pictures taken at the end.

Steve found the maid show mildly amusing, probably.
Sten enjoyed the experience, probably.
My Otaku cafe was about 1/10th as delicious as it was cute.

With that experience in the books, what could possibly top this?

To be continued…

Last full day in Japan :(

June 2nd: Today’s the last full day in Japan :(. While I’m sad to be leaving, I’m happy to go be in my own bed and be a hermit for a bit. Our plans for this day were to go to Unreal Fest and visit the CyberConnect2 studio. We all met up around 10am to walk to UnrealFest which was also in Akihabara .

UnrealFest was a little underwhelming compared to the size of GDC but it was cool. A lot of cool indie games. A small of group of us even went to a panel but it was all inJapanese so we only got the broad strokes.


At about 12:30, the event was kicking people out to go eat lunch. It was pouring rain ( thanks typhoon) so we wanted some warm food. Belle, Skyler, Pavel, Fabian, and I ended up going to this really good wagyu place where you grill your own steak. It was delicious and not too expensive.


We had about an hour before we had to meet up back at the hotel so Skyler and I went back to the arcade. We did not win anything but we did get some yummy taiyaki. So I had a good time.


We met up at the hotel to say goodbye to Toshi sensei and to thank him for joining us on the trip. Afterwards we went to the CyberConnect2 office to tour the studio and see their properties.

I don’t have any photos but the studio was really cool and seems to have some big games in the works. I did get a cool stamp though!!! It was nice to see what studios look like in Japan in comparison to the studios we have in the US. I’m also still surprised how common it is to smoke cigarettes in Japan, the studio had a smoking room for itself!

After our tour we were sent free for dinner. The school trip is officially over. Brody, Vincent, Esther, Maddi, Jas, Jess, and I grabbed dinner at Royal Host. It’s like a family establishment. All of us pretty much got steak and bread.

Here’s some puffy buns.
After dinner I wanted crepes, so I got crepes. It was pouring rain like hard so I ran with my crepe into the station and found my way home. I immediately ate and took a hot shower. I also took my down time to start packing and planning the route to the airport for Liam and I tomorrow.

At around 10pm, most of us gathered to say goodbye, say some nice things, exchange hugs, cry a bit, and finish the DND movie. It was an emotional night but I’m so glad to have made so many friends and memories on this trip. I’ll get emotional in my next post though.

See you later for my last post about going back to NJ. ✌?

Invading a place of business

Today we went to Unreal Fest! It was super cool even though I couldn’t really experience most of the activities since it was mostly lectures in Japanese. There was a room with game demos set up that was really cool. I played a bunch of puzzle games, this really interesting mecha movement-based action game, and a super fun soulslike that I really liked. There were a lot of games there that I didn’t end up playing because they didn’t look particularly interesting to me, but still cool nonetheless. There was also a lot of tech demo stuff for random systems or software that I didn’t understand because it was in japanese.

After Unreal Fest we had a break for lunch before heading to CyberConnect 2! I ate at this hole-in-the-wall soba place that was pretty good, but I started getting a stomache ache so I didn’t finish most of my food :(. After we regrouped we took a train over to CyberConnect 2’s Tokyo studio. We had a bit of a lecture about what CyberConnect 2 is, the games they’ve made, and how they run things. Then we got a tour of their studio which was really cool to see. They have a really casual workplace that has a staff room full of free games and manga to rent for research, which actually makes sense since they primarily make anime fighting games (such as the Demon Slayer, Naruto, and Jojo’s games). Their studio was really cool.

After CyberConnect2 we could do whatever we really wanted for the rest of the day. So a few of us went back to Akihabara to find someplace to eat. We tried going to this steak place that was supposed to be really good, but it ended up being too crowded. After that place was a bust we walked around for a little bit trying to find a new place to eat. Eventually we decided on this place that was supposed to be like Japanese Olive Garden. It had steaks, burgers, pizza, garlic break, and the like. I got a little pizza and some garlic bread which was pretty good. Then we trudged back to the hotel in the pouring rain and said goodbye to everyone we got dinner with. Then Vincent and I had to do laundry, which was quite troublesome during the typhoon. After the laundry dilemna we went to bed for the night. Last day in Japan :((.